Alone
by Queequg471
Summary: Her death left them all shattered...First fanfic, read and review!ON HIATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
1. Elliot

Elliot Stabler is a retired police officer. At least, that's the Brass's title; the official title. He feels like a fraud for calling himself that though, because he isn't. He knows that it sounds better than 'Elliot Stabler; failure as a father, husband and most importantly, failure as a partner'. However, at this point in his life, he would rather deal with the unsavoury truth, regardless of how spineless and stupid it makes him sound.

Quite simply, there were just too many days where he had stumbled into work late, either drunk or hung-over and in a huge mess. And even that was on the days he made it into work at all. He didn't know how to cope otherwise, how to deal with and rid himself of the thoughts that plague his memory each night his eyes close. He didn't know how to block out the memory of his partner dying.

They were going to arrest a suspect, just like the previous day. As they drove to the outskirts of the city, he remembered thinking that the fall light of September had caused her hair to sparkle and shine. He had thought that she should cut it again, because when it was short, he could clearly see her whole face. It was ironic, he thinks, he can remember that clearly, but what happened next was a blur.

They had introduced themselves, seen the panicked look on their perp's face, and suddenly there was a gun and multiple shots. The next thing he remembers is her, on the ground, lying in a pool of her own blood. He had known, even before he had checked for a pulse that she was gone. There had been no last words, no waiting for the bus that he vaguely remembered calling, no point in hoping that she was still alive. She was gone, and he was alone.

The memory, plays over and over in his head, like a scene from a bad movie. Only, it wasn't a movie, it wasn't fiction and it wasn't fake. But just like a movie, whenever he remembers, he can never change the ending. It always finishes with her dying again, and him waking up in a cold sweat, screaming her name and praying that it was just a bad dream and she'd be there tomorrow. But it's not, and each time he realises this, another part of him breaks.

Sometimes, he remembers the man he used to be, and sometimes he even tries to be that man again. He picks his kids up from his ex-wife, spends that day throwing a football with Dickie, taking Lizzie to the movies or just sitting on the floor, playing with Eli. On days like this, he thinks that he could continue to live – that there is something worth living for. But when his children go back to his ex, and he crawls back into his bed, he dreams of her and wonders if it's all worth it.


	2. Cragen

**Here's another chapter. I'm thinking that this will be about 5 or 6 chapters long, with different perspectives. Click the pretty purple button and leave a review!**

**Thanks to Marish89 for betaing!**

It shouldn't mean this much. It shouldn't hit him this hard, because he's supposed to be the strong one, the one that holds the whole team together. But he was never the one who held them up, Cragen learned. It was always her. Always her who calmed Elliot after he flew into one of his rage fits. Her who posed solutions to the problems that would be sensitive to the victim, when the men had just wanted to get the perp in jail as fast as possible. Her who made the world seem a little less screwed-up for everyone just by being there. Her, in all her passion, had always managed to be a bright spark and comfort those whose lives had been torn apart.

Cragen doesn't know how to fill that hole. He doesn't know how to tell his team that it will work out, that it will be OK, when he doesn't know that himself. So he tries to focus on just holding them together as a team.

He never realised it before, but his office has always been bare. It was like that when he became captain and it's like that now. He knows Elliot and Fin keep pictures of their kids on their desks, Munch keeps a picture of JFK on his desk, for reasons that never made sense to any of them. Casey even keeps a picture of her ex-fiancé in her desk. But on his desk he has no family photos, no personal pictures; just one of Marge and himself on their wedding day, both wearing huge, bright smiles. He prefers to think of Marge that way, as the woman who was always smiling, always laughing, and who believed there was good in anyone so vehemently that he sometimes found himself believing it too. He put it there right after she died, needing to see her face, needing to know that in some small way, she was still there. Now there is another lost loved one, and another photo on his desk, one of Olivia.

Her head is thrown back with laughter, her hair flying into her face, and wearing the same look of compassionate determination in her eyes that was always there. This is the way he likes to think of her. The picture is proudly displayed now, so everyone can see it, and sometimes he feels a little better just looking at it.

He hired Olivia's replacement not so long ago, despite the arguments that had taken place about him taking her place. The new guy, Detective Ken Adams, is solid in his position, but knows perfectly well that he is not part of the family that SVU has formed, straight from when he signed his contract and asked the captain if the dark-haired woman in the picture on his desk is his daughter. When the captain had asked him if the woman looked like him and Adams had said she did, he was shocked to look up and see tears pooling in the old man's eyes.

As Captain Donald Cragen looks again at the image of the woman that was his daughter in so many ways, he knows that it never should have meant this much to him.


	3. Fin

**Here's the Fin chapter. I personally love this one, because I love Fin and Olivia's relationship. Thanks to Marish89 again, you're an awesome beta! And I'm rapidly becoming a review whore, so click that purple/gray button, albeit that could be fancier, and leave me a review!**

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Odafin Tutuola is no stranger to sadness, anger or grief. As he stands outside the door of the one person he knows he truly needs, he reflects upon the loss he has encountered. He's experienced his fair share of grief after growing up in the 'hood', and more after joining SVU. His mind had been tortured with the same images and stories that caused the emotional destruction in all SVU detectives. He comes from Narcotics, a messy, violent and demanding job; not at all like SVU. He thought he'd seen evil in Narcotics but he hadn't, not really. It was like being introduced to a whole new world that had always existed but he'd been completely oblivious to. What made him succeed and not fall into a spiral of depression was something he had never experienced before; a sense of family and supportiveness.

All of a sudden, he had two brothers, a father and two sisters. While he loved Casey, similarly to how he had loved Alex, Olivia had always held a special place in his heart. Never before had he encountered anyone who could be so strong, so brave and so right. She had supported everyone around her, gladly bearing their pain herself if it meant that she could lighten their load. He'd never experienced that, and he had a feeling he never would again. He had been so reluctant to place any of his burdens upon her, when she carried so much of her own. Instead, in his own way, he had tried to lighten hers. He hadn't tried the typical approach, he didn't know how, in its place, he had made it his goal to make sure she knew how special she was. In his head, she became his 'baby girl', and he loved her like a little sister. For all intense and purposes, they were in this together; they were family.

And then his illusion had been shattered. One call, one heart-breaking message, one death. And then anger, sadness and grief were given a whole new dimension. His baby sister was gone. Fin had never been one for goodbye's, but now he bitterly resents that he never got the chance to tell her special she was or how much she meant to him, to everybody.

Their squad was like a house, and when the biggest and most crucial pillar was removed, the whole system began to deteriorate. That's what started when she died, and that's the last thing that she would have wanted. She would have wanted to know that they could survive, that they could get past the pain, and most importantly, she would have wanted them to still be a family. But now that she has gone, he just goes through the motions but his passion and drive for justice are gone. He does what he needs to do now, nothing more, nothing less. They win some cases, lose some but none of it is important because the drive for justice and impartiality has gone.

And as he looks around the squad room, what hits him hardest is there is nothing of her left. Not a photo, not a decoration, not even the old worn scarf she carried everywhere. He feels the loss once more, and as he desperately searches for something of her, he thinks of something she had 

always wanted him to do. So this is where he finds himself, standing outside the apartment door, knowing that Olivia is smiling down upon him gives him comfort and a sense of peace.

As the door opens slowly, he readies himself.

"Hello Ken."


	4. Munch

John Munch is a cynical man. He has been that way for years, but he is even more cynical right now. Nevertheless, nobody bothers to ask why he is this way. They don't because he doesn't cry about his life and he doesn't sit at home, day and night, wondering why life dealt him such a crappy hand. He does his job, and he does it well. That's why they don't ask. It's why no one asks why he's a cynical, emotionally closed, and guarded man. If they did, however, John Munch might tell them a story.

A story of a little boy who had so much love, hope and dreams that he thought the world was a loving and beautiful place. A little boy whose life had dealt him a crappy hand, and who now strived for the acceptance in a cold, hostile world. And of a little boy who dreamt of being a hero; who fought dragons and monsters and rescued beautiful princesses.

Then as time moved on, the boy's hope, which had sheltered him like a blanket, was snatched away. Piece by piece until nothing was left, and the boy had surrounded and protected himself with a wall of words. Death came in all sorts for the boy, but it always carried two constants; guilt and silence. They stayed with him until the boy grew into a man. A man that was so beaten, broken and destroyed that letting go of either the guilt or silence was nearly impossible.

And that described John Munch perfectly until a few years ago. Until Olivia.

She was the new semblance of family for him. She was the little sister he never had, and she did what nobody else had cared to do. She talked to him. He still remembers the night on the rooftop vividly. It was the place where he had first let go of the silence and confessed to her about Emily McKenna, and the little girl across the road. The emotion that he felt that night, after almost half a century of keeping it inside, was almost unbearable. If Olivia had not been there, he would still be the same cynical, crippled man he used to be. From then on, John Munch had hope. She had given him a piece of what was so cruelly snatched from him as a child. That was the gift that she had given him; the gift of letting go.

And then she too was brutally ripped away. In a split second, she was gone forever and he was alone. Back to the same depressed, emotionally stunted, and cynical man he had always been. But now he has a family, a place of sanctuary that he can come to for comfort. As he watches the room around him, he knows that he needs his family more than ever now; they depended on each other to survive. It would make Olivia happy to hear that, he thinks. And that's enough reason for him to let down his wall altogether.


End file.
